NASA TechRise Student Challenge
This nationwide contest invites students in sixth through 12th grades attending U.S. public, private, or charter schools — including those in U.S. territories — to team up with their schoolmates to design an experiment under the guidance of an educator. Teams submit ideas for experiments to fly on a NASA-sponsored suborbital commercial flight test. Competition winners receive $1,500 and virtual mentorship to build their payloads. No experience is necessary to join the NASA TechRise Challenge.
See below to learn more about the winners announced Jan. 20, 2026.
challenge status
2025–2026 integration and flight testing in progress
Flight Test Platforms
High-altitude balloon and suborbital spacecraft
number of students
370+
states/territories
52
2025-2026 Student Projects Take Flight | Bringing Experiments to the Launchpad| Developing a Nationwide Workforce | More about TechRise
2025-2026 Student Projects Take Flight
Following NASA’s announcement of the fifth TechRise Challenge winners in January 2026, 60 student teams worked to turn their proposed science and technology experiments into reality ahead of NASA-sponsored flight tests. On July 1, students from 25 middle and high schools watched their experiments launch aboard a high-altitude balloon operated by World View Enterprises of Tucson, Arizona. The remaining 35 student experiments will fly on a Suborbital-Spaceship operated by Virgin Galactic of Orange County, California.
For the 2025-2026 challenge, NASA received the highest number of entries representing the greatest geographic participation within a single year for TechRise. The winning teams include more than 370 students from 52 states and territories. Students’ use of sensors and various types of hardware to gather data in stratospheric and microgravity environments will address a wide variety of challenges. They will study radiation, the behavior of electricity and magnetism, how dust/particles interact, the presence of volatile organic compounds, and more.
Read more about the high-altitude balloon flight test.
Bringing Experiments to the Launchpad
The 2025-2026 winning team at Dickinson High School in Dickinson,
North Dakota, unpack their NASA TechRise starter kit, which includes
a flight box in which to build their experiment. Credits: Sarah Trustem
(Dickinson High School)Each team received $1,500 to build their experiment, a flight box to house it, virtual mentoring and technical support to bring their projects to life, and an assigned spot for their payload on a suborbital spacecraft or high-altitude balloon flight test.
Flying a payload on a suborbital vehicle exposes it to the conditions of space, allowing researchers — and TechRise students — to collect the data they need to validate their hypotheses and advance their research.
For experiments selected to fly on the high-altitude balloon, the flight test with World View provided approximately 3.5 hours of flight time at over 70,000 feet with exposure to Earth’s upper atmosphere, radiation, and perspective views of Earth. For experiments selected to fly on Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spacecraft, the flight test will provide approximately three minutes of microgravity as well as the opportunity to study the accelerations and conditions of the spaceflight.
“My students learned how to turn a broad scientific question into a clear, testable investigation,” said Jon Markus, TechRise educator lead for the winning team from Adel DeSoto Minburn Middle School in Iowa. “The most exciting part is knowing my students will collect data from the upper atmosphere, something scientists and engineers do in real environmental research. Few middle schoolers ever get the chance to conduct an experiment that leaves the ground, so the experience will be unforgettable for them.”
See the complete list of winning teams.
(left) Students from the 2025-2026 winning team at Marist Saint Francis Elementary School in Pago Pago, American Samoa, work on mounting their payload. Credits: Susan Tupuola (Marist Saint Francis Elementary School)
(right) Students from the 2025-2026 winning team at Classen School of Advanced Studies Middle School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, work on wiring and drawing a diagram during a team meeting. Credits: Classen SAS Middle School
“Tomorrow’s workforce depends on the bright minds of today’s students. By engaging the next generation of our workforce with hands-on learning opportunities like TechRise, we aim to give them the skills they need to take our country forward in technology, science, and space exploration.”
Danielle McCulloch, program executive, NASA’s Flight Opportunities program
Developing a Nationwide Workforce
NASA’sTechRise Student Challenge seeks to equip America’s future workforce with the skills needed to advance the U.S. aerospace economy, giving students real-world experience with the same processes that professional researchers follow. Nearly 20,000 students from across all 56 U.S. states and territories have engaged in the experiment design and proposal process for TechRise since 2021.
Learn more and pre-register for the next challengeMore About the TechRise Student Challenge
Managed by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and administered by Future Engineers, the TechRise Student Challenge fosters the U.S. space industry through use of commercial vehicles for flight tests, while strengthening America’s space technology researcher community and enabling students across the country to engage directly with professional engineers. Flight Opportunities purchases flight testing services from its portfolio of commercial providers for the competition.
TechRise is one of many NASA Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing efforts within NASA’s Research Technology Mission Directorate offering opportunities for the public to contribute to America’s space program.
Visit the competition site
Media
TechRise News
Projects from the Next Generation Take Flight in 2026
Students Gain Real-World Experience in 2025
Faces of Technology: Meet Wanessa Priesmeyer
Wanessa Priesmeyer discusses her work as a flight test campaign manager as well as the TechRise Challenge.
Student Innovations Soar in 2024
NASA Selects Winners of Third TechRise Student Challenge
NASA Challenges Students to Fly Earth and Space Experiments
NASA TechRise Student Challenge Tests Experiments in Stratosphere
NASA TechRise Student Payloads Explore New Heights
Rising to the Challenge: NASA TechRise Student Teams Take Flight
